"…" (HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS) should be an alternative syntax for "..." (FULL STOP FULL STOP FULL STOP)

[masklinn]

BPO	12056
Nosy	@birkenfeld, @benjaminp, @masklinn

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2011-05-11.13:46:13.964>
created_at = <Date 2011-05-11.12:29:22.480>
labels = ['interpreter-core', 'type-feature', 'expert-unicode']
title = '"\xe2\x80\xa6" (HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS) should be an alternative syntax for "..." (FULL STOP FULL STOP FULL STOP)'
updated_at = <Date 2021-05-19.06:06:18.579>
user = 'https://github.com/masklinn'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2021-05-19.06:06:18.579>
actor = 'xmorel'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2011-05-11.13:46:13.964>
closer = 'benjamin.peterson'
components = ['Interpreter Core', 'Unicode']
creation = <Date 2011-05-11.12:29:22.480>
creator = 'xmorel'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 12056
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['135771', '135778', '135779', '393924']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['georg.brandl', 'benjamin.peterson', 'brandon-rhodes', 'xmorel']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'rejected'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue12056'
versions = ['Python 3.2']

[masklinn]

In Python 3, "..." became useable as a normal expression, and translates into an ellipsis instance.

Unicode defines an ellipsis character "…" (U+2026 HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS) which is canonically equivalent to a 3-sequence of FULL STOP [U+002E U+002E U+002E]

I think it would be nice if Python supported "…" as an alternative to "..."

[brandon-rhodes]

But if we allow for ellipsis, then would we not also have to start allowing characters like ≥ and ≤ in Python? And the problem with any of these (admittedly very attractive) substitutions is that they seem to abandon the principle of there being One Obvious Way of typing any given expression. Instead there would now be several alternate ways, with different styles in different codebases and, I think, something of a visual and symbolic mess resulting. I like each symbol to have exactly one possible representation.

[benjaminp]

Making such substitutions is a good way to introduce subtle bugs.

[masklinn]

But if we allow for ellipsis, then would we not also have to start allowing characters like ≥ and ≤ in Python?

No, they're not defined as canonically equivalent to >= and <= by the Unicode specification:

    >>> unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', '…')
    ...
    >>> unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', '≤')
    ≤